


I Have Been One Acquainted With The Night

by lazaefair



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Multi, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey is a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6836254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alone, Rey crash-lands.</i>
</p>
<p>A distant planet, a snow-cloaked forest, and thou </p>
<p>(and thou and thou)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have Been One Acquainted With The Night

Alone, Rey crash-lands.

“Get the girl,” Kylo Ren snarls. Stormtroopers scramble to obey, firing up ranks of speeders, unearthly mechanical howls disturbing the peace of the planetary forest in nighttime.

Alone, Rey crawls out of the smoking wreckage. Ribs bruised, ankle twisted, flight suit ripped and charred. She curses and drags herself up, stumbles to the edge of the clearing. Her breath frosts the air in front of her.

Kylo himself rides the lead speeder, boots jammed into the stirrups, the throttle opened to its limit, black cape flaring out behind him like a storm. Snow-cloaked trees rise up before him in the moonlight, flashing by in an eye-twisting blur, a promise of decisive death written into every trunk.

Alone, Rey runs, calling on the Force to give her strength, channel her pain into strength, hold her body together long enough to survive. She can’t hear the engines yet, but she knows they’re coming.

The girl blazes in the Force, a miniature nova on the horizon of Kylo’s mind. She’s had training since they last met. “West,” he barks into his comlink. “She’s headed west. Bring her to me _alive.”_

Alone, Rey spreads her awareness out as far as she can push it. Three klicks east, the first troopers blink into existence on the edge of her consciousness, closing in fast. Their minds feel purposeful and streamlined, the same singular focus that all programmed stormtroopers share. On foot, injured, she’ll never outrun them. She slows. Stops. Closes her eyes and breathes out.

“Damn!” The girl’s presence winks out in the fabric of the Force like she was never there. Skywalker’s taught her some tricks. Kylo slaps at the speeder controls, pulls up organic life sign sensors on the console display. But her signal wavers and disappears almost as soon as it comes up. “She’s gone to ground. Rendezvous at last known location and begin a search pattern.” His eyes fall on the other life signs - _alien_ signs - unmistakably beginning to converge in the area, and curses again.

Alone, Rey strives to keep her Force presence small, still, silent. Curled up as tight as her ribs will allow, tucked into the hollows of a large tree root system. She cradles her datapad in her hands as it broadcasts a localized signal net disguising her as an inorganic object to sensor scopes. So shielded from mechanical and Force-sensitive eyes, she keeps her senses alert, and waits.

The wreck is still smoking when Kylo skids to a stop next to it, blowing snow everywhere in the wash of his speeder’s antigrav field. A stolen TIE fighter from the planet security base, its delicate solar panel wings grotesquely twisted. Multiple struts pierce the central pod, mortal wounds that leave no question as to the pilot’s fate. That is, if he didn’t know with a certainty beyond knowledge that the girl is still alive, is still somewhere out in this endless forest. “Field commendations for anyone who finds her and brings her in,” he growls at the troopers lined up behind him, and watches with satisfaction as they speed off.

Alone, Rey stares into slitted golden eyes and stifles the panic crowding up in her throat. She presses herself back against her tree trunk, all strategizing forgotten in the face of the feline predator peering down at her with a shocking intelligence in its face and a very, very large mouth full of very, very sharp teeth. It _grins_ at her, which is the only warning she gets before it swipes at the tree roots protecting her with an ominous crunch. Splinters rain down and she throws herself flat as a massive paw whips through the space where her head had been, stirring the hairs on her neck, almost dream-like. 

It’s a nigh-on explosion in the Force, the girl’s presence flaring back into being, shining so brightly Kylo feels an almost physical pull toward her. At the same time, her life sign reappears on the console display. “Go, go, go,” he yells, slewing the speeder around so violently he nearly puts the nearest stormtrooper into a tree. She is a beacon, and he has her now.

Alone, Rey leaps straight up from her hiding place, twelve feet or more, vaulting high over the predator’s head, and lands facing it in the center of the clearing, igniting her lightsaber in the same motion. The brilliant blue-white glow stabs into the space between them, just long enough to give the predator’s eyes a demonic gleam before it pounces, claws outstretched, so fast she barely dodges. She cries out, her scalp and cheek bloody, but she’s still alive. The Force guides Rey’s feet forward and the Force guides her hand upward, a brutal slash that slices to the bone. She smells burning flesh. 

Something inhuman screams so loudly it reaches Kylo’s ears over the whine of his speeder engines. He’s first into the clearing - near-hypnotized by the familiar flash of her lightsaber through the trees - and it’s easy as breathing to flip off the speeder while it’s still in motion, to run headlong at the two beings locked in battle, already high on the violence permeating the Force around them. The girl is slashed and bleeding, her face apocalyptic, fierce. In the space of two strides he’s chopped his blade through the beast’s torso and she’s sliced its head off. The corpse falls at their feet, steaming.

Rey faces Kylo Ren in silence, save for the low hiss of their lightsabers. His mask is a black-and-silver smudge against moonlit snow and forest shadow. She can hear his harsh breathing under it, counterpoint to hers. For a long, dizzying moment she hates it, and hates him. 

“Yes, give it to me,” Kylo says, pleasure dropping his voice low, even through the vocal modulator. “Your hatred makes you strong.” They’re circling, the world narrowed down to this point, this moment in time - he takes note of her improved stance and easy grip on her lightsaber and feels his lip curl. “Skywalker must be blind as well as a fool not to see who you really are. You’re no more of the Light side than I am.” He lifts his saber high and brings it crashing down in a heavy overhand blow, but she parries with frustrating ease. 

Rey struggles with him, drawing on instinct. “You know nothing about me,” she tells him with conviction, locking blades, the rising crackle drowning out the roar in her head. She breaks the lock with a twist of her wrists, twirling away only to lunge in again in a flurry of blows, seeking to slip under his guard. She throws her mind open, sinking deep into the golden space she found piece by piece over days of meditation and training, accepting the power and serenity of the Force as the desert accepts the cool, life-giving relief of a rainstorm. She ducks under a wide sweep and drives towards his chest, lightning-quick. 

Kylo jerks back ungracefully to avoid being impaled. “You’ll fall in the end,” he hisses and bodily flings her across the clearing with the Force. The girl has done more than just improve. She is - she is a warrior in her own right, gilded with the sun, pouring light into the forest, turning night into day. Enraged, he stalks toward where she lies. Snarls, “You’ll fall or you’ll die. I have seen it.” To the troopers hovering silently on the edges of the clearing, they’re just two mortal humanoids fighting in the snow, their leader towering over a slight, ragged slip of a girl. But to him, looking through the Force as she stands and holds her ground with complete self-assurance, she is armored in gold.

Rey opens her eyes wide and looks at Kylo Ren. She perceives him as a contained explosion of anger and - fear, so much fear, swirling black in the Force. “Everyone dies,” she says, because it’s true: she made her peace with it when she was ten years old, left starving on a sand dune by a pair of scavengers who took everything she had. _“I’m_ not afraid of it.” She tastes blood on her tongue, coppery and familiar. And then he’s on her.

Kylo puts everything he has into the attack, every advantage he has in height and reach and strength. She’s fast and clever - but every strike tires her a little more, every blow takes a little more out of her reserves. They dance in and out of the treeline, leaving snow churned to froth in their wake. He locks blades with her again, pushing forward, forcing her legs to buckle, her arms to contort to avoid the crossguard. This close, he can see the sweat trailing down her skin, glistening in blue and red. She grunts, baring her teeth at him. Without conscious thought, his lips peel back in a mirroring growl. “Yield.”

The Force _surges._

“No.”

Rey throws herself forward. Kylo Ren’s arms crumple between them and he screams as their joined lightsabers slam into his chest, burning through cloth and armor and flesh. They spring apart, him staggering into a tree, her thrown backwards by a wild retaliatory Force-push. She somersaults out of his invisible hold, landing on her feet with a triumphant crow - then swings around defensively at the silent white circle of stormtroopers closing in on her. Ten of them at least, blasters trained on her, flat black gazes fixed on her. A few more drift up slowly on their speeders. She closes her eyes and forces her muscles to relax, loosens her grip on the lightsaber, breathes through the first tendrils of fear creeping into her mind.

“I said, keep her _alive,”_ Kylo bites out through clenched teeth, already striding forward. Pain throbs through him with every step, and he opens himself to it, reveling in it, channeling it into strength. The girl isn’t going to give herself up willingly, however calm she appears on the surface - he can feel defiance radiating off her like sparks from a fire. The circle opens up slightly, two troopers moving aside to let him through--

Rey opens her eyes and catches Kylo Ren’s gaze the barest instant before he senses it, too. She watches his expression change in slow motion, passing from astonishment into helpless, incandescent fury as they’re all thrown off their feet, the air around them reverberating with the concussive force of rapid-fire laser bolts from a BlasTech Ax-108 “Ground Buzzer” blaster cannon. Snow and soil fountain up into the air, obscuring her field of vision even as she picks herself up and runs blindly toward the Millennium Falcon.

_Rey--_

Finn’s voice, in her head. Like a sleeper in a dream, she watches the Falcon land gently and the boarding ramp lower to the ground. Finn descends from it like one of the angels Master Luke told her about, once. If angels carried rifles.

“No!” 

Fury crackles palpably through Kylo Ren’s howl, and Rey stumbles as Dark Force energy comes down on her with the savagery of a sandstorm. Pain spikes up from her ankle, her ribs, the scratches on her scalp, tripling in intensity even as her mental shields strain under the assault. She falls to her knees - then bites her lip hard enough to draw blood, staggers to her feet, and keeps going.

“Rey!”

Finn’s voice, out loud. Blaster fire criss-crosses around her, blurry flashes of color filtered through the tears in her eyes. Behind him, the Ax-108 tucked under the Falcon keeps pumping out laser bolts, filling the forest with an electric shriek on top of the chaotic storm of sound beating against her ears, the storm in her mind--

The Force assault lifts as abruptly as it descended. She nearly goes to her knees again with the relief of it, at first only dimly aware of silence falling. When she lifts her head, it’s to an incredible sight. Dozens of blaster bolts frozen in mid-air, most of them pointed at one person: Kylo Ren, his hands raised as if in prayer. His mask glows in reflected neon light. 

He’s looking straight at--

_“Finn!”_ Faster than thought, Rey moves - lightsaber up, arms outstretched, mouth open on a scream-- _“Get down!”_

She catches the first bolt, her blade flashing inches from Finn’s face as he obediently folds his knees and falls--

_(Finn riddled with blaster burns, gone before he hits the snow)_

\--a hundred deaths converging on a single point--

_(Herself fatally struck, torn to pieces and burning)_

\--her lightsaber glowing bright, brighter, eye-searingly white--

_(Kylo Ren standing over their prone bodies, grimly triumphant)_

\--and between one heartbeat and the next, Rey shuts her eyes, grits her teeth, and _throws_ as hard as she can.

Everything explodes.

When the thunderclap fades, silence falls on the clearing again. Until the Falcon groans, settling back onto her landing gear. 

Flat on her back, Rey blinks up at the inky sky, trying to banish silvery blotches from her vision.

“Blinking hell, Rey,” Finn rasps to her right. She turns her head to watch him uncurl and settle belly-down in the snow, checking his rifle at the same time. He props himself up on his elbows to scan the clearing. 

When he doesn’t react to whatever he sees, Rey decides it’s okay to stay where she is for a few moments more. “It was the best idea I had at the time.”

Finn doesn’t stop scanning, but he does grin. “Not complaining here. But seriously, what the kriff did you do?”

“Pulled all the blaster bolts into my lightsaber and threw it at Kylo Ren when it overloaded. Speaking of which--”

“He’s down,” Finn says immediately, and Rey sighs. “Far end of the clearing. Not moving, as far as I can tell.”

She reaches out with her mind and manages only the briefest of brushes before a headache blooms behind her eyes with unforgiving speed. She hisses, flinches back. _Over-exertion can lead to temporary or partial burnout,_ Master Luke warned her, months and planets ago. _Continuing to access the Force after that will make it permanent._

“I can’t...I don’t think he’s dead.” She’s not quite able to keep the un-Jedi-like regret out of her voice, and it’s Finn’s turn to sigh.

“Right,” he says, and pulls the switch to arm his rifle with a decisive click. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Agreed.” Rey’s flight suit is soaked and freezing. Her ribs protest as she rolls herself over, her ankle a dull throb. She has to close her eyes again for a long moment, listening to Finn rustle beside her.

“Standby, Falcon. We’re heading in as soon as our ears stop ringing. What’s it look like out there?”

“Movement beyond the treeline,” comes Poe’s voice from somewhere in Finn’s jacket. Rey glances at the Falcon, feeling her mouth stretch into a grin as she realizes who’s piloting the ship. “Looks like some of them are recovering already. And I’m reading alien life signs in close proximity. Sooner we get out of here, the better--”

_“Shit,”_ Finn suddenly hisses and they both drop flat as a blaster bolt scorches over their heads. Rey catches glimpses of white armor, arms or legs or helmets darting around tree trunks before more blaster bolts wing through the air, a few splashing on the Falcon’s shields. Behind them, the Ax-108 rattles to life and lights up the area where the first shot had come from, but it still means their momentary reprieve is over. 

Something touches her hand - Finn, reaching out and lacing their fingers together. Warmth spreads through her arm and down her back at the simple contact, lending her a little of his strength even as they both have their eyes on swivel, waiting for the right moment to get up and run.

“I need to get my datapad. And my lightsaber,” she tells him, voice low. “I can’t call them to me.”

“I’ll get them.” He squeezes her hand gently. “You get on the ship.”

She squints at him, incredulous. “No.”

They glare at each other for a moment before Finn’s lips take on a rueful tilt. “It was worth a try?” 

“No, it wasn’t.” Rey firmly squeezes his hand, the better to haul him to his feet. By the time his eyes finish widening in surprise, she’s already up and moving. 

So they run. Blaster weapons shriek and spit fire all around her, the ground lurches under her feet, the cold stings her eyes, and using the Force gives her nothing but roils of pain. But Finn’s a solid presence at her back. She collapses into a somersault seconds before a blaster bolt connects with her head, landing on her shoulder and rolling over in time to watch Finn do the same thing, already firing as he comes up on his knee.

So they run. Even with her senses dulled, Finn’s professional concentration - his cool sense of focus - washes over her, an awareness that’s almost like peace. It buoys her enough that she doesn’t even have to break stride to lean down and scoop up her lightsaber. It’s charred and cracked, but there’s no time to mourn as she slips it into a pocket and jerks her head at Finn. 

So they run, weaving lightly across the snow, her hand on his wrist and his mind anchoring her mind, spinning and dodging with with the grace of rain festival dancers. Poe keeps the troopers down, stitching laser fire across the clearing with the Ax-108, and Finn keeps them guessing, wielding his blaster rifle with impossibly precise timing. They make it past the first rank of trees and her ruined hideout suddenly looms large, tilting crazily in her vision when she dives for her datapad among the tree roots - tears starting into her eyes as something else twinges in her ankle. 

Finn’s just pulled her to her feet when Poe shouts, “Speeders, twelve o’ clock!”

They throw themselves flat _again,_ but the three mounted troopers who come through the trees speed right into the clearing, practically over Finn and Rey’s heads. Heedless of the threat from the Falcon, they slalom in perfect formation through the renewed exchange of laser fire-- Rey clenches her jaw, watching them hang off their speeders in an impressive display of coordination, a maneuver that ends with Kylo Ren’s body heaved off the ground and slung over the back of a trooper’s saddle. 

And then they’re gone.

She can still hear their engines roaring through the forest, but there’s no question of pursuit, either by land or air. The entire base security force must be mobilized by now.

“Let’s go.” She starts to get up and stumbles into Finn’s side with a gasp.

“Rey--”

“You are not carrying me bridal-style up the ramp,” she spits through gritted teeth, out of breath with how fast they’re now hobbling across the snow.

“I wasn’t planning to,” Finn says, faux-injured, and slides his arm under hers, supporting her enough that they can pick up the pace. 

The ramp starts closing behind them even before they’re all the way in the ship. “At least two squadrons in the air and headed our way,” Poe’s report crackles over Finn’s comlink and also floats down the cockpit passageway, terse and welcome. “Roger that,” Finn yells back and tugs her into the main cabin bunk before she can protest.

She starts tugging back when she realizes - “Wait, he needs a co-pilot, there’s a whole fleet on this planet, I need to--”

“Come on, Rey,” Finn pleads. He waves his hand at her in mute appeal, the gesture taking in the blood, her limp, the way she’s cradling her ribs. “He got us through the planetary shield and TIE patrols, he can handle this for minute. You need to - just let me--” 

They both sway with increased gravity as the ship takes off, accelerating faster than it normally would. Pain swarms up her muscles, leeches energy from her limbs, and Rey finds herself sitting down on the bunk without any memory of commanding her body to do it. Even primed for battle, the Falcon croons _home_ to her, a low hum that allows her to unclench her neck muscles a little, smooth away the a little of the adrenaline edge. 

She finally lets herself go limp and unresisting to Finn’s fussing. His hands are gentle as he tapes her ribs amidst the tumult of breaking atmosphere. She closes her eyes and tilts her face up for a kiss. “Missed you,” she murmurs.

“Missed you, too,” Finn says. “You’re completely insane, you know that?”

“Not any more than you are.” She can feel his love and relief like a warm blanket and she braces her hands on his shoulders - BB-8 squeals indignantly as the deck lurches beneath their feet - her mind already curled up in his Force-presence like a kitten in a basket. 

“Finn,” Poe yells from the cockpit. “I need you, buddy.”

Rey catches his lips for one long, heart-stopping moment, then pushes him back. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

He nods, and nods again, and then he’s gone. She straps herself into the bunk and listens for his feet pounding down the gangway, and then the thump as he drops into the gunner’s seat, his voice rising up in acknowledgment to Poe. And then, faintly, the slight hull rattle of the topside guns coming to life, followed by the heavy electronic wail universal to laser bombardment. The Falcon twists and turns - stomach-dropping even though they’re making their way out of the gravity well - yet every move feels deft and assured, each juke and dive followed by the familiar quad cannon clunk that means Finn’s taking advantage of the targeting opportunities Poe presents to him. She smiles a little loopily. Her boys really are the best. 

Alone, Rey listens for Finn’s whoop, for Poe’s answering encouragement. She listens for the sounds of family. BB-8 rolls up to her, wobbling only a little considering, and proffers an analgesic spray. Applying it, and splinting her ankle, takes up the rest of the dogfight and her ragged concentration.

And then the cannons stop, the lurching stops, the Falcon smooths out and _sings_ around her. She feels the low tug in her stomach that means they’ve just gone lightspeed. “Sweet Force, that was amazing,” filters faintly back from the cockpit. She grins with her eyes closed, picturing Poe in her mind: unstrapping himself, tossing his headset down, jabbing frantically at the autopilot controls, all but launching himself out of his seat. Finn’s doing the same, and it’s even odds on who dashes across the ship fastest, who appears out of breath in the door of her bunk before the other one plows right into his back.

She opens her eyes, and it’s Poe. “Hey, hotshot,” he says, taking two steps in and then they’re embracing, reveling in each other’s touch, drinking in sight and smell and feel of solid muscle under her hands. He sinks to his knees between her legs - that is never, ever going to get old - and it’s time for kisses, frantic, sloppy, I-love-you-I-miss-you-we’re-still-alive kisses. It’s glorious.

“Thank Force,” Poe’s murmuring into her mouth, “thank the fucking Force,” and she giggles in sheer joy, kissing his nose and cheek and ear before she opens her eyes and lifts her head to look at Finn. He’s hovering in the doorway with a soft expression on his face.

“Come here,” she says, and he does, sliding into the bunk next to her. She turns her head to kiss him softly. 

“Kriffing hell, Rey,” Poe starts, and she giggles again. She tugs on his hair, lightly, urging him up to sit on her other side. He puts his arms around her, tangling with Finn’s, linking their circle together with her in the center. “Hell of a fireworks display you put on out there.”

She leans into Finn’s shoulder. “Anything to show off in front of my boys. Did it work?”

Poe kisses her temple. “Consider me thoroughly, comprehensively impressed.”

“I’m thinking of selling tickets to the front-row seats,” Finn mutters into her hair. “I mean, if we get there in time. When you go in without backup. Again.”

Rey sighs. They’ve been over this before. Finn, who’s never been truly alone in his life, who never lived as a tiny speck in the desert, profound loneliness etched into his bones and blood. “You risk your life every time the General sends you out, too,” she points out.

“I know.” Finn buries his face further in her hair, his breath sending little tickles across the back of her neck. “But I’m usually with the Pathfinders, or Poe. I don’t like it when you keep volunteering for these missions. By yourself.” His cheek feels hot against her skin. “What if we hadn’t gotten your call in time? What if we’d been delayed--”

“But we did get her call in time,” Poe says, gentle. Rey turns her head slightly, meets his eyes: he understands. “And we weren’t delayed. Well,” he amends with a quirk to his mouth, “by much.”

“Told you the Falcon was too recognizable,” Finn says without lifting his head. Poe shrugs.

“You just wanted a chance to--” Rey interrupts herself with a yawn. Her eyelids feel heavy, and she takes the opportunity to snuggle more into Finn. “--wanted a chance to fly the legendary Millennium Falcon again.”

“Guilty as charged, your honor.” He puts his hand in her hair, smoothing it over, petting Finn as well. “You ready to come home now? Together?”

“Yeah.” She smiles sleepily at Poe. “Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jediprompt's Finn/Rey/Poe week: Hurt/Comfort. I guess there wasn't much hurt or comfort. But the muse behaves how it will.
> 
> Give me more prompts on [tumblr!](http://lazaefair.tumblr.com/)


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